Order of Man - 175： Overcoming Drug Addiction ｜ Court McGee

00:00:00.000 Addiction is something a lot of men are facing, whether it's an addiction to alcohol, pornography,

00:00:05.020 or drugs. It is something that can be overcome. Today, I am joined by UFC fighter Court McGee

00:00:11.240 to talk about his battle with addiction and his ability over the past decade to fight

00:00:15.680 and win this never-ending battle. We talk about his positive upbringing, how he used

00:00:20.440 fighting as an outlet, the disease of addiction, his downward spiral, and how he has overcome his

00:00:26.840 drug addiction. Guys, this one is a bit different as I wanted to give Court the platform to share

00:00:32.020 his story because I know it's going to resonate with so many of you. So I gave him the mic and let

00:00:37.460 him run. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:00:42.900 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not

00:00:48.780 easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.

00:00:55.620 This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:01:00.720 you can call yourself a man.

00:01:03.600 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler and I am the host and the founder

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00:02:06.700 I've got a great one lined up for you today. I've got just one quick announcement, and that

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00:03:32.440 you're going to be satisfied and blown away with their service and quality of their products. So

00:03:36.420 again, go check it out. In the meantime, guys, let's get to the conversation today. Now I am

00:03:41.620 honored to introduce you to my guest. I mentioned him already, Court McGee. He's a UFC fighter. He's

00:03:47.100 also the winner of the 11th season of the Ultimate Fighter. I know a lot of you guys have watched that

00:03:51.580 show. Despite his accomplishments in the ring today, we're actually going to be focusing on

00:03:56.940 his personal life outside of it. He spent a lot of his life hooked on just about every

00:04:02.000 drug imaginable. He talks about that. In fact, he once overdosed on heroin where he was estimated

00:04:07.920 to have spent eight minutes without a heartbeat or pulse. There is no doubt that Court McGee is a man

00:04:14.940 who knows how to fight, but I'm absolutely blown away with the story of his greatest battle in

00:04:19.660 overcoming addiction, walking the path of long-term sobriety, how he handles adversity and how he's

00:04:26.340 taken his greatest challenge and turned himself into a force for good.

00:04:31.540 Court, what's going on, man? Thanks for joining me on the show today.

00:04:34.000 Hey, I am happy to be here.

00:04:35.720 Yeah. We had a conversation. I don't know. It must've been two or three weeks ago.

00:04:38.860 It was powerful. I was blown away. I wish we would have been able to record that last time

00:04:42.160 we talked because I was just blown away with some of the things that you've been through and some of

00:04:46.020 the stories that you, uh, that you shared. So I think we're going to be able to duplicate or replicate

00:04:50.140 it here, man. Absolutely. I'm here and available. No, what it could have should is just, just here

00:04:56.580 and present, right? That's right. I want to talk about that idea of presence. I mean, I know in,

00:05:01.140 in your history and your background, you had opportunities to be present. You've had

00:05:05.880 opportunities in times where you haven't been fully present through some addiction stories and

00:05:10.160 overcoming some of that. And I know just based on our conversations that you've been able to

00:05:14.200 get on top of that stuff and be more present and be more engaged with the things that are

00:05:18.920 important and meaningful for you. Can you tell us a little bit about your backstory with

00:05:24.240 addiction and then we can kind of go from there? I grew up in Layton, Utah, right off of Hill Air

00:05:31.020 Force Base. And I have a hardworking middle-class family. My mom went back to school to be a nurse

00:05:36.580 when I was preteen, teen. And my dad worked civil service on Hill Air Force Base as a mechanic and

00:05:44.340 hydraulics technician, airplane mechanic, fuel mechanic for fighter jets. And so I have one

00:05:51.160 older sibling, an older brother that's 18 months older than me. No neglect, no abuse, very loving

00:05:56.400 household, not overly religious. We had family who was practicing various religions. I had a aunt and

00:06:04.080 uncle who were like ordained Baptist ministers, but I didn't have like a real strict upbringing. It was

00:06:10.720 just honesty and, you know, attendance and attitude, making sure we did what we said we were going to

00:06:17.360 do. But in growing up, especially younger, I was an active kid and fearless. And so I had, you know,

00:06:28.920 tendencies to kind of be rowdy. And you sound like my fourth man. He's really, really route. My others

00:06:35.160 haven't, but he is the rowdy one for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my second's the rowdy one to keep it

00:06:40.720 short. It's like, uh, basically I got into martial arts when I was pretty young. I experienced like

00:06:47.680 this semi-traumatic experience where I was with some of my cousins at a amusement park and there

00:06:55.820 was an older cousin that was with us. And I kind of got separated from the group for several hours and

00:07:01.440 I got really scared and I hid behind this little hot dog stand. And then they tried looking for me

00:07:07.140 and they couldn't find me because I was hiding and I got dehydrated. And I'm still to this day,

00:07:13.280 like I don't eat condiments because the smell of ketchup, mayo, mustard, relish. I was about five.

00:07:20.740 Okay. After that, after being found, like I had this anxiety and fear of crowds, big places,

00:07:27.680 but outside of that issue, I didn't have anything traumatic happen. I had a loving, loving family.

00:07:33.980 And it's like shortly after that, I had problems in school because I was, I would get scared. I'd get

00:07:41.040 nervous. And then, and sometimes I would go like, just stay in the restroom because I felt safe. And

00:07:46.680 there wasn't a big group of people. It was hard for me to focus. And my family put me into martial arts

00:07:52.000 and that's like the starting of my martial arts. And that was at about six or seven years old.

00:07:56.600 Did they just think that would help with your level of confidence or what was their reasoning

00:08:00.600 for doing that? The idea was to give me confidence and then have me, you know, be part of a group,

00:08:05.960 part of something, you know, there was other kids in there, maybe make some friendships,

00:08:09.340 but I fell in love with it. And I had an instructor who was like a little rough around the edges. He had

00:08:15.340 wrestled in high school and college. He had competed as an amateur boxer. He was like a world-class

00:08:22.500 kickboxer and he got into the karate because there was money to be made in, in youth karate. And so

00:08:28.980 this dude was like tough. And he started teaching me to like punch and kick. And he taught me some

00:08:35.240 jujitsu and he taught me some wrestling. And then he talked to my parents into getting me into city league

00:08:41.760 folk style wrestling. And so I did that and I just had this passion for it. And that's what kind of

00:08:47.880 started my passion for combative sports. And outside of one season of t-ball, possibly two,

00:08:57.380 the only thing I've done for the last 26, 27 years is combative sports outside of that one season of

00:09:04.940 t-ball. So that led to competition and I got into wrestling and I realized that I was going to get

00:09:12.600 taken down by a wrestler. So I had to learn wrestling. And then I don't know, I saw this

00:09:18.300 documentary called, uh, Mark Kerr, the smashing machine in that documentary. He was a high level

00:09:24.500 wrestler and he was, had problems with opiates, steroids, stuff like that. But like the sport itself

00:09:34.200 was so raw and the fighting was so raw. I thought I've got to do that. If I can become one of the baddest

00:09:40.360 people on the planet, it doesn't matter if I get left, I'll be okay. And I think that's kind of my

00:09:45.540 early thought on that situation. Was that a helpful thought or did you feel like that hindered you in

00:09:51.080 some other areas of your life? I think that gave me my first interaction with pain medication because

00:10:00.460 I saw him take pain medication because he was in pain so that he could continue to compete.

00:10:05.540 So you used it in a way to numb yourself so you could continue to drive on. Is that what you're

00:10:10.500 saying? Yes. And that's what I saw him do. And I wanted to mimic that. And so I got into a junior

00:10:17.320 high, high school, and I had some altercations with some kids in middle school. I didn't realize,

00:10:23.620 but I have a form of dyslexia where it's challenging for me to, to read text and numbers

00:10:31.160 and letters and letters and I am colorblind. And so it's challenging for me to read text,

00:10:38.560 black text on white backing. So it made it hard for me to read and understand what I read. And so

00:10:45.460 early on, I was forced to cheat and my parents were really pleased when I came home with good grades.

00:10:54.280 And so I did whatever I could to secure straight A's. And so that's what I did. I forced myself to,

00:11:03.840 you know, do, do some like some pretty crazy stuff. And looking back on it, it's impressive to me now

00:11:09.280 when I explain it, but I remember I had, it was my first year of high school. It was a ninth grade,

00:11:15.000 but it was in a middle school. It was separate. The ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th wasn't in the same

00:11:19.520 ninth was still in the middle school, but I had an honors English teacher and he was

00:11:24.220 also my wrestling coach and we had president or not English teacher, sorry, history. And it was an

00:11:29.800 honors history class. And we had to do president reports on all the presidents and we did one a

00:11:36.560 week. And so I would ride my bike about two miles to my grandfather's house, who was a retired

00:11:43.260 Lieutenant Colonel. He was a pilot. He flew Casey one 35 refuelers, and he could also read in excess of a

00:11:52.040 thousand words a minute and retain like 70 to 80% of it, which led to his success in the air force

00:11:58.620 and achieving that level of rank. Was it just a photographic type memory that he had?

00:12:03.600 Yes. And super, super fast, like flipping through pages fast and detailed. It sounds like too. Yeah.

00:12:10.300 Yes. So what I would do is I got this encyclopedia and they were, you know, like three to four pages,

00:12:16.380 just kind of dictating the life of the president pre during, and then after, and then a lot of the

00:12:23.660 things that they did. And so I couldn't get through the text. So I would read like the first paragraph

00:12:28.480 and the last paragraph, and then I would go give it to my grandfather. So I'd ride my bike several

00:12:33.220 miles to his house, talk to him a little bit, like I knew about the president. And then he would skim

00:12:38.320 through that stuff. And then I would conjure up information and then I would remember that

00:12:43.100 information. And then I would go home and then I would have my brother type it on our old ass

00:12:48.080 computer. And I had a challenging time typing. And so I would ask my brother or I'd pay him in candy

00:12:54.960 bars. And I would say, Hey, listen, this is what I want you to type. And I would remember what my

00:12:59.800 grandfather talked about. And so we would do a one page report and he would type it double spaced.

00:13:06.800 And that would be my president report. And I did that all year long.

00:13:10.240 There's like a fine line between cheating and just ingenuity, right? Just being creative and

00:13:15.060 finding a way to make it work. Finding a way around it. Yeah. You know,

00:13:19.140 eventually I graduated with honors and I did really well, but I was forced to cheat. I was forced

00:13:24.160 to find ways to succeed because when testing time came, like it wasn't good. I couldn't get through

00:13:29.860 the material. I couldn't read the material. It was very challenging. But I almost wonder if that type of

00:13:35.080 thought actually serves you though, you know, because you're going to be faced with other challenges.

00:13:39.240 And if you can be creative, whether it's in the ring or outside of the ring and how to address

00:13:43.060 those problems, I think it gives you a leg up than just memorizing information.

00:13:47.760 Yeah. So with me, nothing is by the book. It's all through memorization and through the process.

00:13:54.520 Everything is through personal experience. And that's how I teach martial arts. That's how I work

00:14:02.420 with training partners. That's how I, when I research stuff and I do stuff, I have to do it through

00:14:07.540 practical application and then I have to write it down myself and work through it that way. It's

00:14:12.240 really strange. But going back during that time, I found difficulty like fitting in and I started to

00:14:18.880 get picked on and through my martial arts background, it was like always, you know, find a way out,

00:14:23.820 find a way out. And then I got to a point where I got cornered and some kids knocked my glasses off

00:14:28.240 my face. And then I just opened up and I, I literally beat the shit out of like six or seven

00:14:34.100 kids in this locker room. And it felt great. I had no way out. I knew I was going to be in a lot of

00:14:41.940 trouble because they had broke my glasses and my dad was going to kill me because I was rowdy. And I

00:14:47.560 had broken so many glasses and cost him so much money. And, but it was my breaking out moment. Like,

00:14:53.860 I'm never going to get picked on. And I didn't fit in with any group ever, but I had a lot of friends

00:15:00.600 from different backgrounds, but I didn't fit in. I didn't have a group that I fit in with. I wasn't

00:15:05.860 the popular kid. I wasn't, I wrestled, but I didn't feel like I was part of the wrestling team. I

00:15:11.660 wasn't part of the book club. I wasn't part of the chess club. I wasn't one of the jocks. I wasn't

00:15:18.260 one of the preppy kids. I didn't fit in anywhere. And I had always kind of felt like that,

00:15:23.240 but I found solace in training. I found, you know, like I found, you know, like a sense of

00:15:29.120 ease and comfort from training and learning how to get strong and learning how to be

00:15:35.520 a martial artist and learning how to wrestle and take people down. And then eventually learning how

00:15:41.200 to, you know, incorporate all those things together, which is what mixed martial arts is.

00:15:46.600 Do you feel like you've fit in now or have you just reconciled the fact that you're never going to

00:15:51.540 fit in? Like where are you at right now? What kind of space are you in with, with regards to that?

00:15:55.800 I found my group and it's a group of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics who are in long-term

00:16:03.900 recovery. And I found that through treatment and a 12 step program. So my group is 30 plus million

00:16:12.680 strong here in the United States. The crazy statistic though, is that 90% of us started using and

00:16:20.420 drinking in our teenage years, which shortly after that like eighth, ninth grade year, we had family

00:16:28.720 property in Lava Hot Springs. And my dad is a beer drinker and I would sneak into his beer.

00:16:34.800 And that was my first like experience with beer. And I didn't drink it because I liked the taste.

00:16:40.260 I drank it for effect. And once I caught a buzz, all of a sudden it didn't matter about fitting in.

00:16:47.680 I was like, okay, I found it. But the question is, cause I think there's, I mean, me included,

00:16:53.080 I think just about every kid out there probably got drunk in high school. I mean, it's what you do.

00:16:58.340 How does that then spiral into something that's addiction and destructive the way it is versus,

00:17:05.680 yeah, I used to drink when I was a kid in high school. I used to steal my parents' alcohol or

00:17:09.120 whatever. You know, there's obviously a huge difference. How does it get to that point?

00:17:12.140 This is the important thing to note is that long before I took that drink or drug,

00:17:19.520 I had the disease of alcoholism and addiction inherent in my personality. Maybe that came

00:17:24.980 through my great grandfather or some of my siblings because there's alcoholism in my,

00:17:31.700 in my gene pool. What I did by taking those first couple of drinks or trying marijuana was I

00:17:39.460 triggered that allergy, the allergy of addiction. At first it was fun, you know, and I was told like,

00:17:45.660 you know, don't drink until you're 21, you know, it's bad, bad things can happen, but I see the

00:17:50.200 adults do it. And my dad, you know, it's like, I remember in like third or fourth grade, I was told

00:17:55.420 if you drank a six pack of beer, you would die of alcohol poisoning. And I thought that's a lie.

00:18:00.680 I've been lied to. And I've seen my dad drink a six pack. And all he does is crack old man jokes

00:18:07.580 and cook. And like my dad never still to this day, I have never heard him raise his voice to my mom.

00:18:15.840 He does all of the shopping and like, he's the most kind, loving man, not to mention he had a hero of

00:18:23.800 the city latent city award for donating just over 60 gallons of blood, which is the second largest

00:18:30.920 donator in the history of blood donation. Really wonderful neighbor. He's an incredibly gentle,

00:18:36.740 kind, loving individual. And so I thought these people lied. So I'm going to take this drink.

00:18:43.320 And once I took that drink, I went, wow, I see why people do this. Yeah. And my problem was I

00:18:51.620 couldn't stop or limit the amount. So it's like I had to continue to drink. And then when I caught

00:18:56.500 that buzz, I had to continue to drink to increase that buzz. And I found out that I was a blackout

00:19:04.580 drinker within the first couple of times I drank. But I knew that there was repercussions with that,

00:19:10.900 not to mention, I knew I had to get through high school. Plus, I didn't want to interfere with my

00:19:15.100 wrestling. Now that my wrestling started taking off in high school, I came out and I beat somebody I

00:19:21.160 wasn't supposed to on the team. I made a varsity position. And then pretty soon it was like, I was

00:19:25.640 one of the top wrestlers in the state of Utah within a year of my high school competition. And

00:19:31.400 I thought, wow, okay, I can do what my parents suggested. Like, Hey, maybe go into college

00:19:36.680 and I can wrestle in college. That way I'll get an education through wrestling, not necessarily go to

00:19:42.160 college to get an education, go to college to wrestle, to fund your wrestling. Right.

00:19:46.660 Well, and then I can fit myself to be like that Mark Kerr guy. I'll have high level wrestling and

00:19:53.100 then I can just incorporate that and then become a mixed martial artist.

00:19:56.620 Was that the point to go into UFC? I mean, did you have that goal and that ambition

00:20:00.340 way ahead of time?

00:20:01.860 That was the point to wrestling. That's the whole reason I was wrestling

00:20:04.260 was to become a better fighter. I wanted to fight and that's what I wanted to do.

00:20:10.080 Sophomore, junior year in high school, I got a full-time employment during the middle of the summer

00:20:14.600 and it was on Hill Air Force Base landscaping. But as soon as work got over, I would start drinking

00:20:21.180 and it took a bigger role in my life. Like during the weekends when we went camping or hanging out

00:20:26.420 with friends, I started to party. We started to try, you know, like smoking marijuana. And then I

00:20:31.880 started selling marijuana. I didn't really like smoking pot, but I found all of a sudden I had this

00:20:38.880 stature. If I was the guy that could buy the marijuana and sell the marijuana, it was like I was the cool

00:20:44.320 guy.

00:20:45.240 Oh, so that was like an attempt to fit in almost a little bit. It sounds like.

00:20:48.260 Exactly. Exactly. And so, and it felt cool. Like it wasn't very lucrative for me. Like I would buy

00:20:53.780 and sell weed. I wasn't like, Oh, I made 400 bucks this week or whatever. Like I bought it. I would buy

00:21:01.260 alcohol with a drink and then I would get to work and I would, I was trying to regulate it from the

00:21:06.240 very start. Okay. I can only drink on these times and do this and this. And then that's when the

00:21:10.920 trouble started. So I got pulled over, you know, a couple of times I got arrested. I got into some

00:21:17.140 altercations. I got charged with like criminal mischief, like you name it. Like I started getting

00:21:22.740 into trouble. I got into some fights. I got arrested a couple of times and then it was like, okay, I got

00:21:28.160 to clean this up. I got to focus. I got to get back. So I pulled the drinking back. I paid my fines,

00:21:33.720 my court fees, my restitution. I did all those things. And then I got out of trouble.

00:21:37.660 And then now it was time to start school again. So I start school, I would do my preseason wrestling

00:21:42.520 and then I'd wrestle really hard. And as soon as wrestling was over, the drinking would start again

00:21:46.440 on the weekends. And then the next summer it was even more. And then I got my first DUI and I went

00:21:55.160 through the whole process of that, of getting a lawyer and paying, you know, several thousand

00:21:59.560 dollars and following all the guidelines and resources. And then I, I couldn't drink. They put me

00:22:05.760 on house arrest for a month, but I could still work. It started to get worse. It was fun and

00:22:10.860 then fun with consequences very shortly thereafter. And then it was like, every time I drank, there was

00:22:16.600 consequences. And so I had to regulate my drinking and control it even more. And then I got injured

00:22:22.740 before you get into injury. Did you just think that that regulation that you had enough willpower to

00:22:28.640 control it and you didn't, or like, how did that play out or, or were you able to control it?

00:22:33.660 I thought that I was controlling it. And at that time I thought that it was okay, but the

00:22:39.480 repercussions were like, Hey, my, my dad would say like, Hey, you still smell like alcohol from last

00:22:43.740 night. Hey, you shouldn't be drinking. You better not be driving. But in my mind, I had these

00:22:48.480 justifications that, Hey, listen, I'm, I was making at the time like 11 or 12 bucks an hour, which was

00:22:54.080 significantly more than anybody I knew. And I was working full time during the summer. My paychecks

00:23:00.300 weekly were like 350, 400 bucks. I was making almost a couple thousand dollars a month. I'm

00:23:06.160 like, there's no way that I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. So you were justifying that.

00:23:12.180 Yeah, exactly. And society has taught me that alcoholic is a panhandler and a drug addict is

00:23:19.620 somebody that's like stealing shit out of your garage. And I'm not one of these guys, you know,

00:23:24.100 I'm not a drug dealer. Drug dealer is, you know, this type of person, but realistically I was a drug

00:23:31.980 dealer, you know, and I was doing the legal shit and I was driving under the influence. And I,

00:23:36.940 I was forced to do those things to continue to drink because I had to hide it. And then,

00:23:42.900 you know, senior year came around, I got injured. I was in an arm wrestling tournament and I tore off

00:23:48.660 the growth plate and my left elbow. So I wrestled my whole senior year with that growth plate torn

00:23:54.320 off and not being able to straighten out my left arm. And I ended up losing to two kids my whole

00:24:01.000 senior year. I took third in state. I won a national tournament and I thought, okay, this is my chance.

00:24:06.320 This is my shot to go to college. And I found out that, uh, I qualified for a scholarship and

00:24:11.920 athletic scholarship. But in 2003, title nine took all the wrestling scholarships and gave those

00:24:17.160 scholarships to some female sports. So I wasn't able to accept college money to wrestle. And in 2003,

00:24:29.620 every college in the state of Utah, not one college in the state of Utah had a wrestling program.

00:24:36.500 So I would have had to leave the state. Right. And then you have the out of state tuition and

00:24:41.260 everything else. Yep. And I thought I can't do that. And so what I did was, okay, well,

00:24:48.960 I'll still go to college, but I'll just go to Weaver state because it's close to us.

00:24:52.580 So I signed up, started, I took like way too many classes and I got like a week into it. And I was so

00:24:59.300 overwhelmed with the amount of material that I would have to read that I was just like, there's no way.

00:25:04.400 So I dropped out of a couple of the classes, took just barely enough classes to get by.

00:25:08.220 And my drinking took a bigger role because I wasn't wrestling. And I went over to meet my

00:25:13.740 girlfriend who had been my girlfriend since I was about 15 or 16. We hung out for the first couple

00:25:19.980 of years. And then we started dating. Her name is Chelsea. And I was going over to her house at like

00:25:25.940 two o'clock in the morning after I had been at this party and I was drunk and I was on this little

00:25:30.080 go pad and I wrecked and I shattered my collarbone. And prior to that, I had been prescribed some

00:25:40.080 Percocet or Laura tab and I had taken them and I had realized in taking those, I could catch a buzz.

00:25:48.080 I could still go to work. I could still go to school and nobody could smell alcohol on me,

00:25:54.480 but I still caught a buzz. And then on the weekends, when I mixed the alcohol with the pain

00:25:59.260 pill, I thought, wow, like I've been missing out. This is fantastic. All the anger I had towards not

00:26:06.880 being able to wrestle in college, not being at a college that offered wrestling. I thought, you

00:26:12.060 know what? It doesn't matter now. I have this, I'll do this, I'll figure it out, I'll get a degree or

00:26:16.920 whatever. And then if this doesn't work out, I'll just go get a job working construction. And that'll

00:26:23.840 be that. And my training started falling behind. I started like lifting weights, but there was one

00:26:30.660 MMA gym and I trained a little bit at that gym, but it was kind of like my, my dreams and aspirations

00:26:36.440 were kind of like dwindling away. And I was just like, damn, I don't know. I had to grow up whatever.

00:26:43.780 And when I shattered my collarbone, they prescribed me 10 milligram Oxycontin and Loratabs. So like

00:26:49.700 Loratabs, I would take every four to six hours, they were a 10 milligram Loratab. And it was every

00:26:54.940 four to six hours, I'd take two of those. And then every 12 hours, I would take an Oxycontin.

00:26:59.920 And one of my closest friends that I grew up with since before grade school, who lived right around

00:27:04.620 the corner from me, had fallen off of a three or four story building and broke his back, broke his legs,

00:27:11.320 was hospitalized for a month or so. And he was prescribed pain pills. And at the suggestion

00:27:17.380 of a friend, he started snorting the pain pills. And so he told me, Hey man, I'll pay you $10

00:27:23.800 for those Oxycontins. And I thought in my head, well, why is he willing to pay that much for him?

00:27:29.540 And he said, dude, you suck off the coating, crush it up and snort it. It takes care of all

00:27:34.420 the pain and you feel good.

00:27:36.640 Well, and it's because it's not time released anymore, right? It just right into your bloodstream

00:27:40.100 at that point. Yep. And I wasn't one of the kids that snorted pixie sticks. And so I was kind of

00:27:46.360 like, uh, that doesn't seem like a good idea, but I'll give it a try. He's my friend, you know,

00:27:52.380 I'll give it a try. So what I did is I sucked off the coating, crushed it up, snorted it. And I didn't

00:27:59.520 get that euphoric feeling. I didn't like it. It burnt my nostril. And I thought, I don't think I'm

00:28:05.700 ever going to do that again. And that's where I made my mistake because I lied to myself.

00:28:11.300 Immediately after that, I sucked off the coating of another one. I crushed it up. I snorted it and

00:28:17.360 it hit me like a million bucks.

00:28:20.280 Why did you do it again? You said you weren't going to do it. And then you just, you did.

00:28:23.420 So like, why?

00:28:24.000 I don't know. I have this instinct to do one more, to push it a little bit harder,

00:28:31.460 to go a little bit higher, to jump a little bit further. It's inherent in my personality.

00:28:38.520 And I think it was like, you know, that in the back of my mind, I got to do it one more time.

00:28:45.640 I just got to do it one more time. And I did it without even thinking about it. And then it hit me

00:28:49.180 like a million bucks. And I went, wow. Okay. You know what? Screw college. Screw everything.

00:28:57.500 As long as I got this, everything will be okay. I like cleaned my room. I walked around. I did a

00:29:03.760 bunch of stuff that I probably shouldn't have been doing because I had a shattered collarbone.

00:29:07.300 Two weeks later, we got a second opinion. And then they found out that like

00:29:11.320 the little iron bra thing that they had wasn't going to take care of it because it was such a bad 0.99

00:29:16.220 break. They had to go in, do surgery, remove like a whole bunch of bone fragments and then repair it,

00:29:23.060 put a plate in, put an extra bone in there. They had to do a pretty major fix. Not to mention,

00:29:29.260 they were able to go in, shave off the growth plate that I had torn off in my elbow, put a plate

00:29:34.540 and a pin in my elbow. So I had two surgeries at one time and they prescribed me so much medication.

00:29:40.700 And I thought, this is wonderful. So I went to college high as fuck for the next year.

00:29:48.200 I don't remember hardly anything. I started working at the SANS club, working overnight so I could go to

00:29:53.920 college and I would just loaded the whole time. And then it came time to get off of them. And my

00:29:59.320 family started to recognize it. And once I mixed the alcohol with the pain pills, like it was over

00:30:04.420 with those pain pills helped me regulate my drinking. But once I mixed them, like all bets were

00:30:10.160 off, it didn't matter. Then, you know, it was like one of my coworkers was a former cocaine user and

00:30:17.180 he was talking about how he used to use cocaine and so cool. So if you're going to buy pain pills

00:30:22.420 illegally, you know, if they don't have pain pills, maybe they have some cocaine. And pretty soon he was

00:30:27.040 like, Hey, you know, this guy's got cocaine. He doesn't have any pain pills. Do you want to buy it?

00:30:31.140 And I was like, well, my boss might buy some. Yeah. You know what? Screw it. I'll buy it.

00:30:36.920 And then I can sell it to him, mark it up. I'll make a little bit of money,

00:30:40.380 but I'm not really interested in it. So I did it. I bought $300 with the cocaine and he took half of

00:30:47.040 it. And so I was left with half of this cocaine, you know, and it was like, it was a little better

00:30:52.400 than an eight ball of cocaine. So, you know, maybe like 20 or 30 lines of cocaine. Right. And so I was

00:30:59.920 stuck with this other half of cocaine. So I just walked into the back of Sam's club in the bathroom

00:31:04.360 on my little break in the middle of the night. And I was like, well, I'm stuck with half of it.

00:31:08.800 I might as well do it. And so I did a little line of cocaine. I walked out, started to work,

00:31:13.100 went back into the bathroom, did another little line of cocaine, went back out and maybe I'll do

00:31:17.680 a little bit more. I went back in, did a little bit more. And then that repeated until I had no more

00:31:21.680 cocaine. And then I was up for like two days.

00:31:23.900 That night, that night. Oh man. And I didn't really like it, but it did give me energy.

00:31:30.400 And I threw like 50 pallets afraid or something. And I was like talking to everybody. And, and I

00:31:36.000 thought, wow, you know, Hey, this makes for some pain pills shit. But then when it was time to go to

00:31:42.160 bed, I was like, uh, I don't know. I can't get to bed. So I smoked a little weed, but I had to go

00:31:48.800 find the weed to smoke the weed. And then, so I smoked a little bit of weed, but that didn't do it.

00:31:52.560 And then I had taken some central nervous system depressants, benzodiazepines, Xanax,

00:31:58.080 Klonopin. And so I was like, well, maybe if I get a milligram of Xanax, that'll help me go to

00:32:02.520 sleep. It's anti-anxiety. Plus it helps you go to sleep. I found somebody, I bought a couple of Xanax

00:32:07.680 and then I finally went to sleep and I was like, well, okay, I'll use a little bit of cocaine.

00:32:14.100 The pain pill will take care of the pain. A little bit of cocaine will be like my cup of coffee. It'll

00:32:18.620 help me get through more pallets. I get all my schoolwork done. And then if I do a little bit

00:32:24.020 too much cocaine, then I'll just take some Xanax. But you see the process of buying all those things,

00:32:29.660 figuring out when and what time to take those. Like you still have to eat. You still have to go

00:32:33.900 to college. You still have to show up. You have to drive to and from those places. You pay for your

00:32:39.180 insurance and those things are expensive. And so holding that together did not work. Pretty soon,

00:32:45.400 I was not a good employee because going to and from the bathroom, 1100 times in an eight hour

00:32:50.580 work period is like, you're not getting a lot of work done. I was getting a lot of drugs done,

00:32:55.940 but not a lot of work done. And then I became irrational, short, you know, obviously I wasn't

00:33:01.680 sleeping very much. And then it just like, it turned into shit pretty soon. My first year of college,

00:33:06.900 I dropped out and I said, college isn't for me. There's no way I'm going to do this.

00:33:09.900 I'm just going to work. But in that time I had got arrested. I had had multiple DUIs and I had all

00:33:17.820 these consequences where I thought, wow, I really need to stop drinking. I got to stop the pain pills.

00:33:23.220 I got to stop everything. I thought going from a graveyard shift to a day shift and then changing

00:33:28.240 and getting outside would help that. So I told myself, I'm going to quit everything. So I did my

00:33:34.360 best. I quit everything. I quit that job, quit everything all at once. Same time. Just I'm

00:33:39.960 done with all this all at once. I was just like, I'm done. I got to be done. And so I withdrawed for

00:33:44.820 a couple of days during that time. My parents kicked me out because of all the charges that I

00:33:50.300 had, but they let me come back and stay at their house while I was coming off all the drugs. I just

00:33:54.720 told them I was really sick and, you know, they let me stay in their basement for a little while.

00:33:59.260 And so I stayed in there for like four or five days and I came off all that shit. And it was

00:34:03.280 literally the worst withdrawals I've ever had from anything. I can't imagine.

00:34:07.480 It was absolutely terrible. And like, just to give you an idea, like I was taking roughly between like

00:34:13.940 one, 10 milligrams of Xanax a day, which is a tremendous amount of Xanax. I was drinking

00:34:20.740 anywhere from like on an average day, like a 12 pack and a pint of whiskey. You know, I was doing

00:34:29.200 maybe like 150 to $300 worth of cocaine a week and not to mention keeping up with the

00:34:35.540 Oxycontin, the Percocet. And so I was taking, you know, 10 to 12 of those a day. And that

00:34:41.400 was pretty average. One time I bought 2000 Somas muscle relaxers from Mexico. And so I was

00:34:48.000 taking, you know, like 10 and then 20 and then 30, 250 milligrams Somas a day. So, I mean,

00:34:54.700 like it was a tremendous amount. And so when I came off of that, like it was really, really rough,

00:34:59.980 but I got hired on at this job or landscaping job, which is where I was comfortable. And I'd had my

00:35:07.280 first job, but he also did sprinkler lines. So I dug an entire quarter acre lot sprinkler line.

00:35:15.400 And the dude was super impressed. He was like, Oh, I'm sure. I don't think I've ever met anybody that

00:35:21.000 could work this hard. And I knew I was capable of working that hard, but I was completely clean.

00:35:25.480 He introduced me to a friend of his and that guy was a, like a foreman or a superintendent at a big

00:35:31.960 excavation company. And he said, Hey man, I'm interested in you coming and working with me.

00:35:37.360 Would you be willing to jump ship and come work? The guy gave me his blessing and he said, yeah.

00:35:41.700 And he hired me on for like six or seven more dollars an hour. So making like a thousand bucks a

00:35:47.180 week and working hard all day. And I jumped on the job. I was completely clean. I felt great.

00:35:55.380 I got two weeks into the job. I got like a two or $3 an hour raise. And the guy told me, dude,

00:36:01.340 you'll go places. They'll pay for surveying degrees. Like you will go places in this company. And if you

00:36:07.140 continue to work like this and all of a sudden my life like shifted, I was like, wow, okay,

00:36:11.340 this is what I'm going to do. And I can succeed at this and I'll make a good living and we'll go on

00:36:17.620 like this. And then right about that time, my girlfriend surprised me and said like, I can't

00:36:23.360 be with you anymore. I'm actually to move to Russia and teach English. And I was devastated.

00:36:31.120 There was like a religious barrier. She was, she was LDS and I wasn't. And so there was a little bit

00:36:37.040 of a religious barrier. And I don't know, she was like my rock during all the hard times, you know,

00:36:43.480 when my family kicked me out, I could always tell her like, oh, poor me, poor me. And she'd be like,

00:36:49.080 oh man, you got the wrong side. And then she had enough of that. She realized that I was the problem,

00:36:54.520 not everybody else. I had cleaned up and I thought, okay, I'm doing better. Everything's good.

00:37:00.860 I'll pay off all my fines, all my court fees, everything will be great. And she kind of

00:37:06.680 surprised me. She ended up leaving. She moved to Russia to teach English. Two or three days later,

00:37:11.760 I got a call from another friend of mine I grew up with. And he, I'd bought pills from him. I bought

00:37:15.840 Xanax from him. And he was part of the deal when we bought all the Selma's and we'd grown up together.

00:37:21.700 It was this little threesome of people, you know, that we did everything together, fish together,

00:37:26.400 we lifted weights together, we wrestled together and we did drugs together. He called me and he said,

00:37:30.520 hey, my girlfriend just had a baby. I have some Percocet. Do you want them? And I said, no,

00:37:34.300 man. I said, I'm a hundred percent sober. I just got a killer job. I got a raise. I'm doing really

00:37:39.920 good. Chelsea left, but like, I'm okay. I'm going to be self-supporting. I got a little apartment.

00:37:46.120 I'm living life, dude. I'm doing good. And he's like, hell yeah, I'm proud of you, bro.

00:37:49.740 You know, blah, blah, blah. And then like six o'clock rolled around after like a 12 or 13 hour shift.

00:37:55.200 And I went, I'm pretty sore. And I think I'll just buy two of those Percocet and take them to

00:38:04.280 take the edge off. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so I called him back frantically and said, hey,

00:38:09.920 do you still have those? And he said, yep. And so I went to his house and I bought two of them

00:38:14.560 and I took them immediately. And within four or five minutes, I caught that buzz and I called him

00:38:23.240 back and I said, can I buy the rest of them? I bought the rest of them. And literally three

00:38:28.960 and a half months later on a three day cocaine and drug bender where I was still working, I got

00:38:35.060 a temporary hire guy to buy me like a pint of vodka. And I was drinking a pint of vodka by the time I got

00:38:41.440 off and drove home. And then I would get my neighbor, cause I was still under the age of 21 to buy me an 18

00:38:47.280 pack. I would drink 16 of them, leave two of them in the morning. And then any pain pills I could get,

00:38:52.600 any cocaine I could get, I went back to that same cycle only more because I had more money.

00:38:59.220 And it was to a point where like, I couldn't even afford a $40 cell phone bill. I'd be calling my

00:39:03.840 parents like I'm a 50 bucks shy on rent this month. So three and a half months later, after a, basically

00:39:10.760 like an, an average night of me trying to overcome a craving beyond my mental control, I hadn't slept for

00:39:18.680 three days. It was time to get to work. I took a whole bunch of Xanax like to go to sleep, but I

00:39:23.580 couldn't go to sleep. And then the Xanax kicked in three 30 in the morning, rolled around. I had to

00:39:28.040 be at work at like four, four, five. And I pulled up to the job site, called my boss before he saw my

00:39:33.700 truck and said, made up some bogus story about some crap that happened. Can I take the day off?

00:39:38.600 And he said, yep, I'll see you tomorrow. And I turned around, I drove my Jeep home. I ran a red

00:39:44.880 light. I got into an accident, rolled my Jeep. Luckily, thankfully the person that ran into me

00:39:51.980 was like uninjured. They just bumped the right rear of my Jeep. Nothing really happened to their car,

00:39:58.620 but mine flipped and rolled and slid like six or 700 feet. I busted out of my Jeep. I sobered up real

00:40:06.000 quick. And I was just like, oh man, I can't go on like this. And my parents came, the ambulance came.

00:40:12.060 I said I was okay. I crawled out of my Jeep. Nobody talked about drugs. Nobody talked about testing me.

00:40:18.520 Nothing ever happened. They took me off to the hospital. Like I refused to ambulance. I got my

00:40:24.020 family to drive me there. I went and then my mom had had them drug test me. And I tested positive for

00:40:30.720 like everything. They were like, Hey, I want to do a drug screen on him. He's, he's, you know,

00:40:36.420 he's still a dependent. He's 20 years old. And they did a drug screen. And I came up positive for like,

00:40:42.580 for everything. The police came and asked, but because of HIPAA, they couldn't release that.

00:40:51.780 And so there was no repercussions for that. And I didn't have a Jeep anymore, a vehicle to get to work.

00:40:58.600 So I had my family drive me to work and I told them I might have a problem with alcohol. And they

00:41:02.740 said, we don't have room for you here, but if you get sober, we would love to have you back.

00:41:08.140 And I never bit back to that job. Three weeks later, I overdosed on heroin in a trailer. And

00:41:15.320 then that was the September 9th, 2005. If anybody's interested in watching the sports centerpiece,

00:41:21.160 you can go to courtmcgee.com and there's a link right on the homepage until they did that sports

00:41:27.160 centerpiece like five or six years later, I had no idea what had happened. Basically I had overdosed

00:41:32.200 in the trailer. The syringe that I'd shot up had fallen in between the wall and the linoleum in

00:41:38.120 this little trailer. I had passed out and there was a girl there. She was sitting outside of the door,

00:41:44.480 like trying to open the door. And then my cousin who I was living with at the time came in,

00:41:48.860 saw her, asked what was going on. And she said, I don't know what happened. Court fell.

00:41:53.600 He's on the floor and he's jammed in between the door. And so my cousin and her friend,

00:41:59.260 they like broke the door down. He was CPR certified. So he started CPR. My cousin called 911.

00:42:07.700 The ambulance turns out there was an ambulance within like a couple of thousand feet of the

00:42:11.980 trailer. Well, yeah, which is probably lucky. I'm sure. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean like literally

00:42:17.420 right outside of the trailer park, there's an ambulance passing by. So when they called it in

00:42:21.620 and they dispatched it, they were like a minute away from the trailer. So they just

00:42:26.400 swerved. They pulled in, they came in, they started working on me, but see, I didn't have

00:42:31.560 track marks because I was only a couple of weeks into using heroin. But that day I had shot up maybe

00:42:36.240 20 times, just a little bit at a time to maintain the high. I wasn't trying to overdose. It was maybe

00:42:42.200 a little bit pure. Maybe there was some fentanyl mixed in. I don't know. I don't know why. Maybe it was

00:42:47.680 the mix of drugs that I was using. Who knows why on that particular day I overdosed, but I did.

00:42:54.020 There was no track marks. Plus I didn't really have any drug charges. I had alcohol related charges,

00:42:59.220 but I wasn't a known drug addict. They didn't find that syringe. I'm sure. Cause it was wedged

00:43:03.180 down where it was. Exactly. And then the kit that I had was in, I wear glasses and it was in a glass

00:43:09.040 case, but it was shut and it was pushed off into the garbage can. It's kind of like there wasn't

00:43:13.640 anything. So they got me into the ambulance. They did CPR all the way to Davis hospital,

00:43:18.800 which I think is around 10 miles under 10 miles right around that period. So probably like five

00:43:26.060 to six minutes, seven minutes, something like that from the point of them picking me up, loading up,

00:43:31.200 and then driving me to the hospital. And they did CPR that whole time. Undercover narcotics officer

00:43:36.780 was like in the area. He was called on location. He went, he searched, he found the syringe.

00:43:42.080 He called it in and said it was a heroin overdose. He found the kit in the garbage can

00:43:46.440 and they were able to administer narcolone after 16 minutes of CPR and defibrillations.

00:43:54.700 They reversed the effects, but they figured there was like eight minutes where I had no

00:43:59.360 heartbeat or no pulse. Really? So they interviewed all those people. They talked to them. That's how

00:44:05.240 they came up with all the story of what actually happened. Cause my family showed up when they loaded

00:44:11.500 me into the ambulance, you know, and everybody was freaking out and wondering what had happened.

00:44:15.760 And nobody really knew the girl that was there. Like I still, to this day, don't know who she is.

00:44:21.000 I don't know. It was this crazy set of circumstances, but they got there, they reversed the effect.

00:44:26.320 And because they didn't know how long I was out before they started CPR to get oxygen to my brain,

00:44:30.900 they induced me into a coma.

00:44:32.080 Man, just a quick pause to make an announcement. You know, I look around and I see so much good

00:44:38.880 in society today, but I also see a lot of areas in which society definitely needs some improvement.

00:44:44.720 The other day, someone asked me if I could change just one thing about the world, what would it be?

00:44:49.260 Without thinking, I suggested that I would ensure every household had an engaged father in it.

00:44:54.680 I truly, truly believe that strong, loving, supportive fathers in the home have the power

00:45:01.380 to change the world. But you know, as well as I do that stepping into that calling is it's a

00:45:06.620 challenge. And this is the reason that we've decided to host a new event designed to give

00:45:11.920 fathers the tools they need to help usher their sons into manhood. When you join us at the inaugural

00:45:18.120 order of man legacy experience, you're going to work alongside your son to compete and complete

00:45:23.440 a series of challenges and tasks designed to test you and your son physically, mentally,

00:45:29.360 and emotionally. We only have a few spots remaining. If you've been looking for a rite of passage for

00:45:34.860 your boy, this is it. The experience is September 20th through the 23rd, 2018. So mark your calendar

00:45:42.480 again, September 20th through the 23rd, 2018. And again, it's for you and your sons between the ages

00:45:49.160 of eight to 15, eight to 15. Uh, if you want to learn more and lock in your spot, do it quickly

00:45:55.300 because we only have those few spots remaining head to order of man.com slash legacy. Again,

00:46:00.840 that's order of man.com slash legacy. Now with that said, you can do that after the show,

00:46:05.420 but let's get back to the conversation with court. Somebody who is in long-term sobriety,

00:46:11.180 who is a licensed clinical social worker came in when I came out of the coma and he talked to me,

00:46:16.880 he spoke my language. He knew what I had been through. He knew I wanted to quit and couldn't.

00:46:22.800 And he made the suggestion to go to residential inpatient drug treatment and to attend a 12 step

00:46:29.860 meeting and listen and see how I could identify to the people talking. I just knew I needed to do

00:46:36.840 what he said. I trusted him. He was like a role model with a solution. And he was like the Southern 0.94

00:46:43.560 California surfer guy in his sixties with 20 plus years of sobriety.

00:46:47.900 Is that why you trusted him? Because he had been through an experience as well. I don't know if it

00:46:52.500 was similar to yours or what, but yes, from my understanding, I did three months of outpatient

00:46:57.200 drug treatment. Now I don't remember any of it. I don't remember doing outpatient drug treatment.

00:47:03.480 I know I went to a therapist for a little while, but like that was in the height of my Oxycontin

00:47:09.540 addiction. So, so you were just strung out that whole time, strung out the whole time. They never

00:47:14.120 did drug tests. And so I didn't even know, but I graduated that program. And I mean, I don't even

00:47:20.220 remember, I don't remember the guy's name. I don't remember any of the conversations we had. And I did

00:47:24.720 that for three months. So it's like, what in the hell, you know, but this guy knew where I had been.

00:47:31.580 And after five minutes of talking to me, I trusted him. And so I took that opportunity. I went to

00:47:37.900 treatment. My family said, okay, listen, you're still on our health insurance. We'll allow you

00:47:43.260 to do this, but this is your last shot. Cause I had been kicked out a year earlier. Like

00:47:48.340 every once in a while, my mom would like, I'd pay gas money or sometimes it would pay 30 bucks 1.00

00:47:54.100 towards my cell phone bill, or they'd give me an extra 50 bucks for rent or, you know, or buy me

00:48:00.380 food or something like that. But outside of that, like they had really tried to cut ties because I was

00:48:05.380 so messed up all the time. Yeah. And so I went and I was like, I got to do this. I went and after

00:48:13.440 like four or five days of being there and their detox or what their psych ward. And that's like

00:48:18.320 fully immersive, right? I mean, you're there, you're on site, four hours a day, you're on site

00:48:23.180 and you're with a bunch of other people that are trying to get, achieve the same thing as you like

00:48:27.460 have a serious problem and are trying to achieve recovery. And these people, like it was 12 step based.

00:48:33.120 So like similar to Alcoholics Anonymous or a Narcotics Anonymous, like a, it was kind of a 12 step

00:48:40.380 based program. And so they would have these 12 step meetings that were in the facility and we were

00:48:48.720 available to go to those. And in doing that, this big guy named Dave stood up and he said, I'm Dave

00:48:54.920 and I'm a drug addict and alcoholic and I'm in recovery. And if I stay sober for one more day,

00:48:59.940 I'll have six months of continuous sobriety. And he basically told my story the way he felt,

00:49:06.900 how he used, how all the problems happened and all that. And I thought, holy shit, this guy's got

00:49:12.600 six months. Like I lasted two weeks just before I got the call from, from the kid to pick up the

00:49:18.040 Percocet after his girlfriend had the baby. Like I had two weeks. That's the best I could do.

00:49:23.380 And it was the best I'd felt in years. I went and talked to that guy and I got his number and I

00:49:29.320 started talking to that guy and I made it through the treatment center. I graduated. I had three

00:49:35.320 relapses. They were just one day relapses for the first two. And then maybe four or five days shy of

00:49:41.440 having six months. Like that guy had explained to me in the course of that treatment center, I met this

00:49:47.000 girl. She was in recovery. We kind of had some, whatever. We ended up getting into this

00:49:51.220 makeshift relationship. When I was new in sobriety, I had felony drug charges, all this

00:49:57.520 stuff going on. And that guy that I talked to in the meeting was like, you need to do some service

00:50:03.320 work. And I didn't know what he meant by that, but I decided to go back to the high graduated from

00:50:08.500 and offer my services free of charge as an assistant wrestling coach. And so I went in there and after my

00:50:15.020 first practice, I was like, I got to compete again. I started training. I started wrestling with

00:50:20.980 those guys. I went back to that mixed martial arts gym. I started like, I'm going to fulfill

00:50:25.480 that dream of becoming a mixed martial artist. That girlfriend that I had bought me tickets to

00:50:31.260 a UFC event. And so we went out to Las Vegas, went to the UFC event. And then I don't remember what we

00:50:37.800 did, but she had a diet Coke with lime and she had relapsed. She had put a vodka in her diet Coke with

00:50:46.120 lime. And so I went to take a drink and she snatched it away from me and said, you can't drink that. 0.99

00:50:50.220 And I was like, why? And she was like, there's alcohol in it. I relapsed. I've been drinking for

00:50:54.540 the last couple of days. And I was like, oh man, that's not good. And a couple hours later,

00:51:00.160 she bought me a Long Island iced tea and slid it my way. And I had no mental defense against that

00:51:05.840 first drink. All the things I had learned in treatment, all that stuff. I wasn't living that

00:51:11.160 on a daily basis. And so I didn't have a power greater than myself that could stop me from doing

00:51:17.280 that. And so I took one sip. And after that one sip, it was the worst two weeks. And one day of

00:51:23.360 my life, four days later, I ended up in Iowa with no pants on looking for meth.

00:51:27.660 Oh man. Let's fast forward a little bit now, because how do you, you said 12 years, right?

00:51:33.380 Sober now. Yep. Is it just that you have the tools now to overcome this? I mean, what is it

00:51:38.320 that's helping you now? So after coming back from Iowa, I was done. I was done running. I was

00:51:45.400 absolutely done. That was April 16th, 2006. I got a job three days later. I called the district

00:51:51.720 attorney at the time. I told her I needed to go to prison to get sober. I couldn't get sober. I'd

00:51:56.240 been using for a couple of weeks. And she said, come in, make it here on Friday sober. I ended up

00:52:00.900 getting hired onto a job. A couple of days later, I went into my interview with her and she said,

00:52:07.460 I'm not going to put you in prison, but I'm going to put you in this aftercare program for

00:52:12.340 offenders that are coming out of the state prison that are being re-intubated back into society.

00:52:17.320 So I did this Friday meeting and she gave me mandatory urine analysis tests four to five 1.00

00:52:22.900 days a week. I had to call in, give them my color, go do these mandatory piss tests. And I started

00:52:27.660 working. And then I started going back to those meetings and started calling that guy again.

00:52:32.460 And so one day turned into two days, turned into two weeks, turned into two months,

00:52:36.720 turned into, I became a plumber. And then I started training one of like my journeyman plumber

00:52:43.320 that was my boss. He was an old school kickboxer and he started holding the tie pads for me and

00:52:49.780 teaching, you know, and like working with me. And we decided to start this gym together.

00:52:52.900 So we started a gym together. All of a sudden it attracted all these young GI dudes that were

00:52:58.040 super tough from Hill Air Force Base and some young kids. We started going to jujitsu gyms.

00:53:03.480 We got a jujitsu guy that came in and started teaching. I started powerlifting again. I started

00:53:09.340 doing this stuff and I thought, okay, I'm going to give myself a year and then I'm going to compete.

00:53:13.280 Two or three weeks after that happened, I decided to go bowling with a bunch of friends who were

00:53:17.620 sober. And I saw Chelsea, that girlfriend that left me a year earlier. I was like, holy shit,

00:53:23.840 it's Chelsea. And I fell in love with this girl when I was 15. So I walked up to her and I was like,

00:53:28.620 Chelsea. And she's like, court, you're alive. Turns out her mom worked intake the night that

00:53:34.280 I was brought into the hospital and she thought I was in an accident and she thought I had passed

00:53:38.280 away. And so she gave me a hug and she said, you don't smell like alcohol. And I said, I'm completely

00:53:44.060 sober. And she was like, wow. Four months later, she was pregnant with our first son, Isaac, who's now

00:53:50.100 11. And I started training after work every day. Four or five months later, it was like February 2nd,

00:53:57.420 2007. I took my first MMA fight after having 10 amateur boxing matches, two professional boxing

00:54:05.100 matches, about 40 competition jujitsu tournaments, folk style, open wrestling tournaments in a year of

00:54:13.340 competition. And I took my first fight. And when they raised my in Grand Junction, Colorado, I was hooked

00:54:19.360 like I was hooked when I snorted that Oxycontin. I was like, this is what I'm going to do.

00:54:24.940 Eight months later, I signed to fight Jeremy Horn, one of the greatest MMA fighters of all times.

00:54:31.300 He had over 100 fights. I took that fight. He was my sixth professional fight. I was undefeated

00:54:37.840 and I lost a close decision to him. And I thought, this is my shot. Tried out for the ultimate fighter

00:54:43.380 season seven. The one that Matt Brown was on didn't make it because they didn't like my attitude. I had

00:54:48.740 about a year sober and I'd give myself two years to make it. Me and my wife got married. I wanted

00:54:53.420 two years of sobriety before we got married. We ended up getting married. We moved out. I moved

00:54:58.520 down to Utah County to where this gym was that had a bunch of high level fighters in it. And there was

00:55:05.260 a division one wrestling college, the first one after that title nine and all the programs acquitting.

00:55:12.220 They were a D2 program. Then they went division one. And I thought, okay, I'll start farming out

00:55:16.680 wrestlers. I can go wrestle with the college kids. That's where it started, man. And I gave

00:55:21.520 myself two years. And then at two years, I was just about ready to go back to work. I was working

00:55:26.620 like 70, 80 hours a week. I was running the front desk at the gym, running a supplement shop, selling

00:55:31.720 clothes on the side, teaching classes and doing plumbing side work in the middle of the night,

00:55:36.680 trying to support my family, being self-supporting, paying for health insurance, still paying lawyer fees

00:55:42.500 and court fines for all the trouble that I'd been in and then maintaining sobriety. And then I hit that

00:55:47.360 mark where I had three years of sobriety and I was the scary guy that was 11 and one that had one

00:55:57.260 loss to one of the guys that had just fought Chuck Liddell for the title. And so it was hard for me to

00:56:03.440 find fights. And I thought I'm at the end of my rope. I'm going to have to go back to work.

00:56:07.140 A curly haired bearded guy came in and said, you need to go try out. And I said, I don't have

00:56:13.600 enough money to go try out. And he said, well, I got 500 bucks in here to cover your wages and I'll

00:56:19.560 buy you a plane ticket and you're going to take this. And so I was like, all right, I can't guarantee

00:56:25.780 that I can pay you back. It'll take me a long time, but I'm going to go try out. So I went and I tried

00:56:30.400 out, made it through the first two. And then I did the interview and those guys asked me, you know,

00:56:34.740 for a reality television show purposes, the season seven or 11 of the Ultima fighter,

00:56:39.420 the Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz season. They said, what makes you different? Why should we put you

00:56:43.320 on this show? And I said, the only thing that makes me different is September 9th, 2005. I

00:56:49.200 overdosed on heroin. If I stay sober for another couple of months off four years of continuous

00:56:53.920 sobriety, I've been through some shit. And that was it. They were like, great. They like you.

00:56:58.440 Not to mention I had an 11 to one record. I got the call.

00:57:01.580 Right. They like that too.

00:57:02.560 Yep. A couple of days later, they said, I made it. And I turned around and I told all

00:57:07.720 the people in recovery that I surrounded myself. There's no way I'm going on that show. There's

00:57:11.460 unlimited alcohol, blah, blah, blah. And one of those guys that I really look up to like

00:57:16.340 a spiritual advisor, he said, if you make it on that show and there's somebody struggling

00:57:21.360 out there by your story, do you think you could help them? And I was like, yeah, man, millions

00:57:27.880 of people will watch this show. And he said, do you think you could better financially provide

00:57:31.800 for your family? I said, yeah, man, if I, if I win the show, my life changes. And even

00:57:36.520 if I make it on the show, my stock goes up in local shows. And so he said, well, maybe

00:57:41.260 I'll say a prayer. So I said, I had a little vision of me holding up the trophy. And I was

00:57:46.520 like, well, I guess I'm going. And I went, I went through the whole process. I won my first

00:57:51.220 fight. I lost my second fight. I was brought back. I finished the next three guys. And then

00:57:56.120 in front of like four or 5 million people, I won season 11, the ultimate fighter live

00:58:01.160 on Spike TV. And then I dedicated my fight to all those people who are struggling. I

00:58:05.900 became a person in long-term recovery and I was open with my story. I had these crazy

00:58:11.260 highlight fight, career fights and all this stuff that happened. And like the whirlwind

00:58:16.240 of getting famous overnight, especially just in the, in the mixed martial arts industry.

00:58:20.780 And then six years after sobriety, I get a call from an undercover narcotics officer.

00:58:27.800 And he said, you know, this is detective. So-and-so blah, blah, blah. I work undercover

00:58:31.920 narcotics. I need you to give me a call back. And I froze. So I'm married. I've got a second

00:58:38.100 kid on the way. I'm like, Oh shit. Oh, I asked my wife like, Hey, what do I do with this? And

00:58:46.900 she said, we'll call the guy back. And so I called the guy back and he said, I want you

00:58:51.280 to come share your story at the Capitol building, the Utah state Capitol building. Um, the officer

00:58:56.140 who's responsible for you being alive will be present. And I was like, wow, I got to take

00:59:02.140 this opportunity to thank him. And so I went up, I thanked him publicly. And then I shared

00:59:06.940 my story and it was very powerful. There was quite a few people in tears. There was a judge

00:59:12.040 who had lost a son to overdose. We talked for several hours after that. And then I was

00:59:17.160 invited to speak at the Utah narcotics officer association, which is like their annual banquet

00:59:22.820 with every narcotics officer in the state of Utah, which was founded in like 1991, September

00:59:28.140 9th, 2013, the same day I overdosed six years later, I shared my story in front of every narcotics

00:59:37.120 officer in the state of Utah. I had great success. I had officers ask if I would come speak in

00:59:43.400 schools in the counties that they worked in. And then I went and I spoke at my very first

00:59:48.280 school. I had kids come up to me after one in particular that was like, I need help. I

00:59:53.060 need to quit. I think I'm going down the same route. I was able to introduce him to somebody

00:59:56.880 and get him the help necessary, the professional help necessary to change the trajectory of his

01:00:02.640 life. He did. He currently works on Hill Air Force Base. He got the help necessary. He's

01:00:08.220 sober. He's doing really well. One school led to 150 schools later led to the McGee Project.

01:00:16.440 And now I share personal experience of drug addiction and how elusive and crazy it is. And

01:00:26.360 it's right in the midst of this opiate crisis, which it's perfect. Like I offer a solution. 1.00

01:00:31.780 I can be a role model with a solution, not to mention kids that are rough around the edges

01:00:36.480 listen to me. I can offer support because of the treatment centers that I've had an opportunity

01:00:42.680 to see grow and I trust them. I have a host of friends that are licensed clinical social

01:00:50.600 workers, people that specialize in suicide prevention. And so I make those connections

01:00:55.520 after I speak, you know, and offer kids support that want help. Not to mention I give an education

01:01:01.020 to kids who don't think it can happen to them or don't know that it can happen. And that drug

01:01:07.080 addiction and that disease of addiction can be triggered by a prescription given to you for

01:01:12.140 breaking or rolling your ankle. Right. Something positive to help. Exactly.

01:01:16.840 Yeah. And so I started this 501c3 nonprofit, the McGee Project, and we get donations. We're able to get to

01:01:24.500 schools that can't afford it, places that can't afford it. I recently spoke at a school in Kentucky,

01:01:29.760 in Western Kentucky, Marshall County High, the school that experienced the shooting in January

01:01:34.840 of this year. I was able to go out and share and carry the message of hope because they had some

01:01:41.460 opiate problems and some drug problems. And I was able to go share. It was fully funded by a couple

01:01:47.620 of sponsors. We have an opportunity to get in front of thousands and thousands of kids, which is

01:01:52.440 important because based on that USDA statistic of over 30 million people in long-term recovery and 90%

01:02:00.700 of them starting in their teenage years. Well, I married my high school sweetheart. My high school

01:02:06.040 wrestling coach married my wife and I, my two closest friends experienced accidental overdoses and died.

01:02:12.860 Like my story is befitting that of a high school student.

01:02:15.980 And so I'm able to do something outside, outside of the mixed martial arts career and the professional

01:02:23.860 athletic career. When that career comes to an end, I can focus on speaking and presenting and I'll,

01:02:30.140 I'll still have the stage that the UFC has built me and that I've built myself with the community

01:02:35.480 around me. And I can be a productive member of society. I can be a positive role model with the

01:02:40.340 solution. It's wonderful. It's like, it's an opportunity. And not to mention,

01:02:43.980 I still can train 14, 15, 16 hours a week and focus on my professional career. It's been a crazy,

01:02:53.220 crazy time. I thought it was impossible to stay sober for six months when I heard that

01:02:57.460 kid say it, but you know, I'm here with well over 4,500 days of continuous sobriety over 12 years of

01:03:05.820 sobriety. And everybody I've surrounded myself that has helped me become the person I am today

01:03:12.020 is people in long-term recovery. And I see that we can accomplish incredible things. We just can't do

01:03:20.620 it on drugs and alcohol. And it's important. I didn't think I was going to become a professional

01:03:25.560 speaker. And I speak outside of high schools. I just think it's very fitting and more helpful, but

01:03:32.540 you know, I've been hired to speak at some big corporations and big companies on personal

01:03:37.020 development, team building. I guess I could characterize myself as an expert. I have,

01:03:42.840 you know, in excess of 10,000 hours of mat time. And in doing that, you know, I have built a team that

01:03:49.980 has helped me succeed at the highest level in combative sports from nutritionist to accountant

01:03:55.940 to my teammates that I hired out of college. I've attracted some of the top coaches in the world,

01:04:01.820 rest in peace. But Howard Davis Jr., 76 Olympic gold medalist was my boxing coach.

01:04:07.800 Sammy Henson, the Olympic silver medalist is my wrestling coach. John Hackleman, Chuck Liddell's

01:04:13.620 head coach for years and years is my head coach. I have Rob Handley here in Utah that heads up my

01:04:21.160 coaching and does my, my network and my technical jujitsu work. It's, it's like my hard work and

01:04:28.280 determination to succeed in mixed martial, coupled with long-term recovery, staying sober one day at

01:04:34.620 a time has allowed me to become a person I never thought I could be. I mean, this is why we wanted

01:04:38.660 to have you on the show, man, to share that story and to tell people what you've been through and what

01:04:44.200 you've experienced. I got to wind things down just for the sake of time a little bit here. I want to ask

01:04:48.200 you a couple of questions as we do. The first question is, what does it mean to be a man?

01:04:52.740 So to me, being loving, being kind, being accepting. And you know, when I tell you that

01:05:03.620 I'm going to do something or that I'm going to be there, that I can fit myself to be available to do

01:05:09.480 that. Right on, man. That's powerful. Wholeheartedly agree. How do we connect with you? If somebody's

01:05:14.560 listening, wants to get in touch with you, learn more about your story. I'm going to link some things

01:05:18.160 up in our show notes as well, but how do we connect with you, brother? Well, if you want to watch the

01:05:21.660 Sports Center piece, you can go to courtmcgee.com. It's about 10 minutes long. That's my intro when

01:05:28.420 I speak a lot of the time. Pretty powerful and short, doesn't take a lot of time. If you're

01:05:33.100 interested in booking a speaking engagement, say you're like a youth treatment center, youth

01:05:39.080 corrections, youth detentions, high school, middle school, anything with youth, it's contact

01:05:46.300 at mcgeeproject.org. And you can go to mcgeeproject, M-C-G-E-E-P-R-O-J-E-C-T.org.

01:05:56.400 And if you want to, we've made it available to make donations through the website. So if you want

01:06:02.340 to help get us to the facilities, can't afford to hire us, then you can make that possible.

01:06:10.940 Right. We'll make sure we link that all up. I just got to tell you, man, I appreciate you.

01:06:14.060 That's why I wanted to have you on the show is when we had an opportunity to connect. I mean,

01:06:17.440 your story is just so powerful and real. And I know there's a lot of people that have experienced or

01:06:22.440 are experiencing similar things to you or know people that are. And I really think this message

01:06:27.040 is something that needs to be shared. So I want to thank you, man, for taking your time and sharing

01:06:31.000 some of that story and appreciate all the work that you're doing.

01:06:33.460 Yeah. And for anybody who's listening, but struggling right now,

01:06:36.380 don't give up five minutes before the miracle.

01:06:39.720 Right on, man. Appreciate you.

01:06:41.100 Thank you for having me.

01:06:42.260 There it is, gentlemen, my conversation with Court McGee. Like I said, this one was a little

01:06:47.840 different than I've done in the past because I just wanted to give Court the mic and let him run

01:06:52.320 with it because his story is incredible in a lot of ways. It's inspiring, certainly. And I know that

01:06:59.000 there's going to be men out there who resonate, whether it's yourself or you have a brother or a

01:07:03.640 friend or a colleague or a coworker who's dealing with some issues with addiction. And I thought this

01:07:09.680 would be a great opportunity to bring on a man who has battled it himself, who has overcome and

01:07:15.460 working towards continuing to overcome his addiction. And of course, have turned that into

01:07:19.400 a powerful force for good. So if this resonates with you, I'm glad if you know somebody that needs

01:07:25.720 to hear this message, please, I ask that you share this. The more people that are going to hear this

01:07:30.700 message in every show that we do, I think the better off we're going to be because we're going to have

01:07:35.120 more men that are stepping into the calling of being a man. So guys, make sure you connect with

01:07:40.180 Court. Look what he's up to with his foundations. Go read his story. Learn more about what he's doing.

01:07:45.180 Absolutely incredible. Hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you're doing the

01:07:49.860 social media thing. I'm really active on Instagram lately. In fact, our Instagram page and profile is

01:07:55.820 really, really growing, which is a testament to the power of the messages that we're sharing. So

01:08:00.720 that's at Instagram.com slash Ryan Michler, M-I-C-H-L-E-R. That's my user name over there.

01:08:09.220 Anyways, guys, I hope that you enjoyed the episode. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad

01:08:12.940 you're tuning in each and every week. We could not possibly do this without your support.

01:08:17.520 And I'm just blown away with the messages that I get from you guys who are stepping up in your

01:08:23.140 marriages and stepping up in your businesses and leading your communities and doing all of the things

01:08:27.740 that I know I'm working on doing a little better in my life. And I'm humbled and inspired that you're

01:08:32.240 doing the same thing. So I will sign out for the day until Friday. Take action and become the man you

01:08:38.060 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of

01:08:44.540 your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

01:08:57.740 Thank you.

Order of Man - July 24, 2018

175： Overcoming Drug Addiction ｜ Court McGee

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